New York Occupiers Release the ‘Zuccotti Confidential’ Album

Steve and Dave’s May 2013 self-released album ‘Zuccotti Confidential’ is an Occupy Wall Street song cycle of expertly crafted pop songs in the vein of the Beach Boys, if the Beach Boys had been pepper sprayed and robbed of their first amendment rights, then wrote an album about it. The 10-song album conjures specific people, incidents, and themes associated with Occupy Wall Street and defies the popular notion that no original music emerged from the movement.

“Plenty of music was created for Occupy,” notes Stephen C. Baldwin (vocals, guitar, production), and David Intrator (sax). “But the music that was played in Zuccotti, on marches, behind the barricades – the music that was from Occupy was never recorded, except in field recordings. This is the music that we’ve tried to include on this album.”

“The music didn’t stop when the encampment was shut down,” says David Intrator. “Although the November crackdown stopped the drummers—who provided the rhythm track for life at the park—the music itself was unstoppable. Musicians forbidden to use drums picked up guitars. Songs were invented to deal with the great trauma of losing Zuccotti Park and to create community in our wandering diaspora.”

Many of the themes in Zuccotti Confidential come from these days of wandering, loss, and bewilderment. They heartbreak can be heard in such songs as “M-17,” about the momentous final battle by Occupiers to re-inhabit Zuccotti, or “99 Miles” about the grueling 99-Mile March that took guitar-playing activists on a foot march from Philadelphia to Zuccotti along the highways and swamps of New Jersey in July 2011.

“It was important for me to write about some of the people who were heroes—and anti-heroes—to those of us in the Park,” says Baldwin. “People like ‘The Man in the Box,’ who I think of as the Warhol of cardboard, and The Knitting Ladies, who were characters right out of A Tale of Two Cities. And I wanted to write at least one song that mentioned Officer Winski,” says Baldwin, who ended up writing two songs (“The Man in the Box” and “Back in Zuccotti Again) featuring the NYPD officer, whose presence loomed large for Occupiers throughout 2011 and 2012. “I happened to see Officer Winski last week in Washington Square Park but he didn’t even remember me. Maybe that’s a good thing,” said Baldwin.

Zuccotti Confidential would never have come about without the contributions of David Peel, who, along with Baldwin, Intrator, and a core group of about 20 other musicians, formed what Baldwin calls the “OZM,” (Original Zuccotti Musicians). “Peel called me earlier this year and yelled at me for letting all of these songs rot away on paper,” says Baldwin. “He got me off my ass and into my kitchen, which is where I recorded everything except Dave’s saxophone solos, which he remotely recorded and e-mailed to me.” Album production was finalized using an ancient copy of Cubase running on a half-dead XP notebook.

Musical influences on the album include Lou Reed, Nick Lowe, The Beach Boys, Serge Gainsbourg, Lester Young, John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, and Bertold Brecht. “The music is probably not in the style that many people will likely associate with Occupy. But this is the music that we heard from inside the movement , from inside the Freedom Cage, along the side of the road, and around the camps as the lights grew dim and hope seemed to vanish from the world. It was this music that kept us going forward.”

Help make our work possible!

Dear Interoccupy Supporter:

We are an independent, ad-free, all volunteer communications working group that has served the burgeoning grassroots movement for social justice every day for the past five years, and we're asking for your support.

Our organization is special because we make it our priority to build communications infrastructure where there is none. Our focus is to help build power through connecting and coordinating the massive, spontaneous, and transformative energy that has erupted in the US since the advent of the Occupy Movement.

Interoccupy ( IO ) is proud of our unglamorous support of the movement. We're dedicated to the ongoing provision of free conference calls and websites to any grassroots group that needs them.

We do all of this with zero budget and an all volunteer crew. It is only possible with your support. We know it is likely you don’t have a lot to spare, but anything and everything helps. Please do your part today. It takes just a couple of minutes to make sure that Interoccupy.net is there for you and everybody else in 2017.

Follow up and new calls for a variety of groups post-DNC in July, and post-election in Nov.

Tech Assistants on Conference Calls

In 2015, IO tech assistants were called upon to assist on racial and social justice maestro calls for other groups. We have helped tech and train new maestro tech assitants for SURJ (Showing up for Racial Justice), Ferguson Action Network, grassroots Bernie organizing groups, and in 2016, TAs for the People's Convention in Philadephia, as well as continuing to help SURJ, and Movement for Black Lives. Trainings are still free. We ask trainees to pay this free skill forward by teching at least one call for a group other than their own. We provide an email list and call spreadsheet to facilitate this collective work.